Today begins the first day of Kwanzaa and I read that the celebration of Kwanzaa is on the decline. Excuse me if I don’t shed a tear. I am one of those blacks who never bought into Kwanzaa. Aside from the fact that it is basically socialism hiding behind Kente cloth, it pales next to the rich religious history behind Christmas.
I, like many blacks in America don’t just see Christmas as a secular commercial holiday. I see Christmas as the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior with its timeless message to “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Man”. When Christmas is viewed in this context, Kwanzaa comes up amazingly short.
In my entire life I have only known one black person who celebrated Kwanzaa. She was a teacher of African American studies and a flaming liberal. Although born and raised in Atlanta like her folks, this young lady fell hook line and sinker for the whole Kwanzaa is African scam.
It seems to me that Kwazaa has mostly survived today because to those who are overly gun ho about diversity. They put forth Kwanzaa on the same equal footing as Christmas and Chanukah, despite the fact that Kwanzaa is a made up holiday that never really caught on with the black community. I think when the diversity fad fades, Kwanzaa will disappear all together and I won’t shed a tear then either.
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35 comments:
Bravo Clifton!
I think that people like us who think about things through our own course of drawing conclusion and critical thinking are the ones that are public enemy no.1 to liberals. I think that liberals believe that they have sealed the goal of getting liberal blacks to hate our fellow Christians that happen to be of a different color.
But we are the ones who can truly cause havoc in the thinking of black liberals, who are actually conservative in their beliefs. Go figure. Thank you for the excellent post. It was great meeting you this year and I wish you many blessings in the New Year.
Thank you for this explanation.
Glad to hear you say this. Being white, I never gave Kwanzaa a lot of scrutiny until I read an article by La Shawn Barber a couple of years ago. She didn't think very highly of it either.
here here! cliff, THANKS for saying this out loud. karenga was a black power socialist who nursed his anger daily. those who still celebrate this fake holiday are definitely like sheep.
as you say, CHRISTMAS has a rich and beautiful history. nuf said.
I never understood this much. Thanks for explaining and giving your perspective.
Well stated and Merry Christmas. Is this not where Hillary Clinton came up with "It Takes a Village" ?
Clifton, I first heard about Kwanzaa from my East Coast ultra-PC white nephew whose private school was scuttling Christmas observances and celebrating Kwanzaa. This was back in '96 -- in the height of P.C. Diversity.
When it was explain ed to me, I told my nephew that it was just exploitation -- no worse that the über-commercialization of Christmas.
It wasn't the spirit of Kwanzaa I ws dissing, it was the haughty, elitist manner in which the white, upper-class kids and their ultra-liberal teachers were latching onto this.
I refer you -- if you want to get an idea of the attitude -- to read Tom Wolfe's essay, Radical Chic.
Thanks for the inside baseball on this and best wishes for a propserous and happy new year.
There are more of us Black folks who don't celebrate Kwanzaa than many would like to count.
Good points and if you don't mind, I'd like to plug an eBook that I just recently wrote and have available on my blog. Check it out at TheTruthAboutKwanzaa.com. I wrote it as a response to my sister's involvement in Karenga's US Organization and I had confiscated my sister's US members books written by Karenega that showed his true intent about Kwanzaa's creation.
You may hear by Kwanzaa supporters frequently how Kwanzaa was not created as a substitute for Christmas. Well, Karenga's own books show that he truly not only created it as a Christmas substitute, but as an alternative to the Christian religion altogether! He believed that Christianity was a white man's religion and created Kwanzaa and its principles for black people to follow. Godless and separatist was Karenga's original (and still current) intent.
Ron Everret's pseudo holiday was invented for two reasons.
1) Help Ron cash in
2) Separate people from Christianity
Thank you for writing this post. I was thimking about writing something similar on my blog, but I couldn't have done better than you. U remember getting into an arguemntabout this almost 20 yrs ago when I think the Kwanza celebration reached a zenith. Everything needed to be Afro-centric then. I argued that loving to read and staying in school should be Afrocentric also. Not maing up Holidays out of whole cloth to promote unity that never seems to happen anyway.
Clifton, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one of the coolest conservatives I've met in quite some time. I value your friendship and acknowledge your great contributions to the conservative cause.
I have this one commenter on my blog. A guy who views himself as victim due to his blackness, and me as the person who is keeping him down due to my whiteness. He mentions Kwanzaa often. I thought about deleting many of his comments then decided against it.
I did a post specifically for him called willful blindness. I have not heard from him as often.
I did a little research on Kwanzaa because of him, and what I read what distrubing.
I hope you had a very Blessed Christmas and enjoyed your time with your family and loved ones.
Mary Baker:
There is nothing more threatening to the liberal agenda than blacks, women or gays who say "no thank you" to liberals offer of assistance. By showing others that they are not victims, we prove you don't need big government policies and what are Democrats without big government polices?
Aunt Amelia:
You are welcome, I could have gone on a whole lot more on Kwanzaa, but since it is dying out, I say let it go quietly into the night.
McJenny:
Kwanzaa is just more of that "separate but equal" thinking that keeps blacks from joining mainstream America. It is the same nonsense like the New York Times holiday gift guide for people of color.
Why on earth do blacks need a special gift guide? Are the gifts everyone else buying somehow not acceptable to us or would white people not like some of the things blacks like? I just don't get the need for it.
Namaste:
Karenga alone is enough to make me say NO to Kwanzaa. How the holiday caught on in the first place is a miracle. I am so glad our peeps are rejecting it.
Many Blessings:
You're welcome and welcome to ABC.
Opus #6:
You're welcome. Glad to give you a little perspective, but believe me this is just the tip of the iceberg concerning Kwanzaa.
Christopher:
Merry Christmas to you too. It is hard to tell if this is what Hillary was referring too. That whole communal jazz is so prevalent in leftist thinking.
Boncka:
Oh yeah, they push that Kwanzaa stuff hard in the elite circles. I remember once when doing a photo shoot for an elitist client. She seemed taken aback that I did not "know enough" about Kwanzaa for her holiday brochure. She even tried to "shame" me for not knowing about my "culture". Needless to say, I gave the gal some schooling.
Carlotta:
I popped over to your site, first rate. Your inside skinny on Karenda's true intentions is a must read! (Click over folks).
What happened to you sister?
Beto_Ochoa:
#2 is a constant theme in leftist politics. Separate black people for all things that connect them to mainstream America. This is key to maintaining the victim status!
Samuel:
Good grief I remember that whole Afro Centric push. Some brothers and sisters fell for that crap like a ton of brinks. It appears to be fading now, thank goodness. Now if we could ditch the term African American.
Stogie:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too my good friend. You have to be the friendliest person on the entire blogosphere!
Hope Santa did right by you and Mrs. Stogie!
JACG:
Your visitor would not happen to have been a guy called Kid? Sounds like his MO. I would be interested in reading your post about him being a willing victim (link please).
Kwanzaa is very disturbing if you know what it is all about.
Hope you and your loved ones have a blessed Christmas season and a most Happy New Year.
Clifton thanks for the positive comments regarding my site! And you wondered what happened to my sister. Well, she decided to return to the family of Christ, but she's not too happy about me writing this book about Kwanzaa as she still celebrates it. So I'll be expecting a rebuttal book from her soon!
She's a very liberal Christian that although she believes that Christ saved her, she believes that anyone can come to God their own way.
Her weak relationship to Christ shows in her support of Kwanzaa and her reasons why. I just can't see anyone who loves God's word and believes it can support the ungodliness of Kwanzaa.
I'm glad you and others can see the real truth!
I don't think more than 5% of the black American population (and even 5% is being generous) ever celebrated Kwanzaa in any given year...
I discovered your blog/site today. My first reaction was to enable and RSS subscription.
It is always reassuring to know that I am not a radical ehtnophobic right wing extremist terrorist because I have less than a positive opinion of Kwanzza.
I am curious regarding you opinion, and that of your readers, about Black History Month. It seems to be Kwanzza like to me; emphasizing Black History a s separate from our collective history(ies).
Thank You
Caroltta:
I am glad to hear that your sister has at least a tenuous relationship with God now. Remember from the tiny acorn a mighty oak grows. Keep nurturing her faith, sooner or later she will fully see the light.
Please keep speaking out against the foolishness of Kwanzaa and socialism. We will be doing our folks a major favor.
Shay:
Even 5% if us falling for that nonsense is too much. I still cannot wait for Kwanzaa to go the way of the Dodo.
JohnFlob:
Welcome to ABC. To answer you question about Black History month in a nutshell, I am not a big fan of that either. Why must our history be separated out of the whole? Yes, black have contributed greatly to America's rich history. But so have the Chinese, Hispanic, Italian, etc. America is a melting pot and each of our cultures have contributed to this nation's greatness.
What is to be gained by pulling our history out from the mix? Is it to make little black children feel better about being black? Newsflash, there is not one damn thing wrong with being black, so keep the pity please!
I have Nigerian and Congolese friends and they have never heard of Kwanzaa.
It seems to me that North Americans don't realise that Africa is a very diverse continent socially, ethnically and linguistically, and it has been shaped by so many things. Kwanzaa doesn't reflect that.
My friends celebrate Christmas in very similar ways by going to Mass (which can last three hours in Africa but one hour in Canada) and eating a rather large meal of goat or chicken stew, vegetables (only the wealthy can eat things like turkey) and fruit (again, wealthy people can afford cakes and other sweets).
Why invent a holiday when you have a perfectly good one right in front of you?
Just my thoughts.
I call Kwanzaa "Do-Not-Torture-Black-Women Week."
Karenga went to prison for torturing 2 black women from his group "United Slaves" (he loves slavery). This was after he created that bogus holiday.
So much for those principles.
As a "flaming liberal" I couldn't agree more. And as for Mary Baker's comments, I think you'll find thinking, listening people in our neck of the woods too. I think we have, all of us, a lot of similarity of thought. Perhaps we differ in ways to express it : >
GUESS WHAT? Our ancestors came from West Africa. They never celebrated Kwanzaa, they never jumped the broom to wed, they never had part in the whole Reggae culture. Kwanzaa is a socialist celebration invented by a criminal in the USA. It is based more upon Hanukkah than real African holidays: kinarah, 7 lights for 7 days... c'mon... JUMPING THE BROOM was NEVER EVER done by anyone, anywhere in Africa. Sure, our ancestors had brooms in Ghana and Senegal, they swept streets and homes. Some say a broom was waived over the heads of people as a blessing. But jumping the broom was done by poor folks, black or WHITE, in the southern U.S. It comes from Europe, from an ethnic minority there called Romani people. I am proud to be a BLACK AMERICAN, my homeland is the U.S.A, my faith is Christianity, and my Black AMERICAN culture includes church on Sunday, fried chicken with greens at mama's house, sweet tea on the porch. Gospel music, rap, jazz and much more. But Kwanzaa? Nope. Not my culture. In fact, nobody's culture.
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